The Secret Behind True Bend

Your horse can’t work in true bend if you are steering from the inside rein.

Are you always getting the comment more bend or circle not round in your dressage test?

Check in and be honest, are you using your inside rein to pull your horse around the circle? Or does your horse know how to steer off the outside leg?

Because I’m going to come right out and say most people aren’t even using their outside leg let alone steering well with it!!

This was one of those light bulb moments for me. You know the one where your instructor has been saying the same thing over and over but it never really sunk in and then one day the cogs all fall into place and the sun shines through the clouds and I magically understand how to turn!! And yes this was quite a fair way into my riding career and after training a couple of horses up to elementary.

I was really struggling with my canter circles on a big warmblood and had decided to put a halter on him and just muck around with him and low and behold he had no idea how to turn! Because the halter had a different effect on him he could get his weight behind it and just not turn. I didn’t realise that he didn’t understand how to follow the bit away from the leg. The most basic training principle. Even though he was “soft” in the mouth he was not soft because he understand to accept and follow the bit but because he was working behind the bit. That’s where he had found the release of pressure.

So the horse that doesn’t know how to steer from the leg comes across quite a few issues in their training.

• The inside rein stays heavy or the horse learns to work behind the bit because when you are pulling the horse from the mouth you are setting them off balance so they will counterbalance against the pull and tense their jaw and the muscles on the inside of their neck instead of flexing them to look in the direction of travel.

• Because their neck and jaw is tight the inside fore will be grounded and the horse will be working on the forehand.

• Because the horse is on the forehand and pulling itself around the corner it won’t be bent through the ribcage around the leg correctly and so will be working hollow even though it may seem to be in a frame.

• They then will bend by “displacing” their shoulders to the outside of the circle making it more likely they will fall out, therefore making us want to pull them from the inside rein even more.

• Then won’t be balancing into their inside hind and engaging properly even though they seem to be. This will results in them twisting or dropping the pelvis and working crooked.

So rather than using the circle for its purpose to supple and engage the topline muscle the circle will be straining and stressing their topline and putting more concussion into forelegs. This can all be happening even though they look like they are doing it correctly.

Can you turn your horse from your outside leg?

There is obviously way more to the circle than just the outside leg, but this is just a common piece of the puzzle I see a lot of riders missing.

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